By David Taylor / Managing Editor
After months of discussion and planning, a prairie resilience garden community project was completed in the Channelview Sports Complex near the picnic pavilions on April 12 that will demonstrate how larger environmental issues can be addressed through small scale projects which could be repeated in other community areas or at homes to shape a more sustainable and hopeful future.
The area, split in two by a sidewalk, is about the size of a small house just over 1,060 square feet. One section is in a sunny area, while the other across the sidewalk is more shaded.
Since the recent hurricanes and flooding that affected the North Channel area, Erica Villarreal, Channelview High School AP Environmental Science & Environmental Systems teacher, has encouraged her students to seek remedies for flooding with their own projects. Following the completion of one such project on the campus of Channelview High School, the students looked outward hoping to involve the community in a sample project that would demonstrate how small projects could add up to big effects. Big projects require big money, something the students didn’t have, so they created smaller sized projects that could be replicated and fairly inexpensive.
Leadership in the project came from the National Wildlife Federation who awarded the school a grant for their project and a second project of $5,000 for the community.
Meetings with multiple entities involved with the project, determined the type of garden desired by community members from the possible five different types of gardens the NWF’s Resilient Schools and Communities (RiSC) program supports would be created and the preferred location out of four community-suggested locations for the chosen pocket prairie to be created. The group decided on the Channelview Sports Complex on Wood Dr. but first, a request for approval for use of the Sports complex site was made to Harris County Precinct 3. Commissioner Tom Ramsey supported the project and submitted and received approval for the project by the Harris County Commissioners Court on March 27.
The partnership, according to Carolyn Stone of the Channelview Health & Improvement Coalition (C.H.I.C.) included Channelview High School Interact Club and environmental students, community members, representatives from Harris County Precincts 2 and 3, LyondellBasell Channelview Complex Susan Scott manager, external affairs Houston Ship Channel, National Wildlife Federation.
“A Prairie Garden is planted with native wildflowers and grasses. Once established, pocket prairies absorb rainwater and can withstand variable weather conditions while providing valuable habitat for wildlife and beneficial insects,” Stone said.
With a goal set to plant the pocket prairie by Saturday, April 12, NWF’s Kate Unger and Marya Fowler began acquiring and staging the needed plants, supplies, equipment and volunteers.
CHS environmental and Interact Club students went to the Sports Complex to take soil samples and look at site topography and conditions. Once back at CHS the students analyzed the soil samples to determine soil conditions and to generate a list of native plants to be placed in the prairie gardens.
On April 1, under the guidance of Pct. 3 Parks Department Greg Wyatt and landscape architect Meade Mitchell of TBG Partners, the final design of the two pocket prairie garden areas were laid out and marked with flags by NWF Kate Unger and C.H.I.C. Carolyn Stone.
Using the prairie plots design drawn on graph paper, Unger used her math skills to compute the quantities of new soil, 4×4 posts, pea gravel and other supplies which would be needed to create the pocket prairies. Fowler also used the drawings, site information and Kate’s area calculations to determine the number of native plants and wildflower seeds which would be needed to establish the pocket prairie area.
On Wednesday, Fowler picked up 150 native prairie plants and staged them. On Thursday, a volunteer group of seven from LyondellBassell arrived to remove a two-inch deep layer of sod inside the two flagged areas.
Students arrived on April 11 to set the perimeter posts unloading 30 4×4 posts and bags of pea gravel.
“They cut them down to 3-foot lengths and drilled each post to receive perimeter roping,” Stone said. Students dug the 30 holes two feet deep by 1-foot wide adding 6-inches of pea gravel to each hole.
Fowler arrived with all the plants plus 155 more and brought four packages of Pocket Prairie Small Wildlife Refuge seeds for songbirds, bees and butterflies from the Native American Seed Company to see the area with wildflowers. Each package held a mixture of 75,000-plus seeds of 36 different prairie grasses and wildflowers.
“After spreading the new soil, each volunteer was provided small cups filled with seeds to use as seed spreaders then everyone lined up along one edge of each garden area and then moved forward in a line shaking their cups allowing the seeds to scatter in the wind and float to the ground. Once all the seeds had been distributed everyone once again lined up at the garden edge and moved forward stomping their feet in a wildflower stomp to plant the seeds,” Stone described it.
Students and other volunteers finished up by planting the 305 plants and watered all of the plantings for the day.
“All of the volunteers were hard workers reaching each day’s goals before the estimated time span was up leaving no task undone or incomplete,” Stone said. “They are a great example of teamwork and community members coming together.”
The Pocket Prairie was funded and maintained through grants of $5,000 from the National Wildlife Federation, $5,000 from LyondellBasell, and $2,500 from the North Shore Rotary Club.
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